Wednesday, December 07, 2011

Published by @Nickslive at nickslive.blogspot.com for Fleetwood Mac News and Reviews:

Stevie Nicks looks back over her life and loves on her new album, says Helen Brown

(This article appears in the December 8th printing of the Hobart Mercury (Tasmania). Article was originally published in The Telegraph in June, 2011

WHEN Stevie Nicks asked her 15-year-old god-daughter to take part in her new video – “playing me at 30, around the time I joined Fleetwood Mac” – the girl asked for a little direction.

“So I told her to twirl, talk to yourself, make like you’re crazy – be me,” Nicks says. “We put her in my vintage, evergreen tie-dye with my top hat. Oh, she looked so beautiful. My girlfriends laughed when we saw the dress. Were we ever that small? We must have been!” She may lament outgrowing her youthful stage gear but Nicks is still a rock-star Rapunzel at 63, blonde locks cascading over billowing, black chiffon sleeves.

It’s been a long and winding road for Nicks. She developed a huge cocaine addiction between the 1977 release of Fleetwood Mac’s 40 million-selling Rumours and her 1986 admission to the Betty Ford Clinic. Her recovery was “aided” by a prescribed tranquilliser, to which she became addicted for eight years.

“I’m still very angry about that,” she says. “I might have met somebody, had a baby, made three more amazing albums in those years.

“I’m pretty sure that had I not eventually checked myself into a hospital and stayed there for 47 days, I would be dead now. I would have OD’D on something crazy – over the counter.”

Arizona-born Nicks met her future boyfriend and song-writing partner Lindsey Buckingham in high school and their first band, Fritz, supported many big stars between 1968 and 1972.

In 1974, Buckingham and Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac. They took the group into the mainstream with their poppier sound and into personal soap-opera territory with a series of romantic dramas that would continuously feed back through their lyrics.

Nicks wrote some of their biggest hits, including Rhiannon, Gypsy, Seven Wonders and Dreams, about her break-up with Buckingham.

She then began a secret affair with Mick Fleetwood (then married), who later left his wife for Nicks’s friend Sara (yes, the one from the song Sara).

In 1981, Nicks released her first solo album, the critically acclaimed Bella Donna, featuring a duet with her next famous beau, Don Henley (though she recently said Henley’s fellow Eagle, Joe Walsh, was the love of her life).

The day Bella Donna topped the US album charts, Nicks’s best friend, Robin, was diagnosed with leukaemia. She asked Nicks to be godmother to the boy who was born two days before Robin’s death. Nicks went one further and – in what she now describes as her greatest regret – married Robin’s widower. The couple divorced three months later.

Followers of Nicks’s tangled personal life will find songs about old lovers on In Your Dreams, which made it to No. 24 on the ARIA charts in May – well below Rumours, which reentered the charts at No. 2 after songs featured on the hit TV show Glee. Nicks claims not to remember who Secret Love, the opening song on the new album, is about. The clue is that she wrote it in 1976. But Everybody Loves You is about Buckingham. Former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, who collaborated on the album, sent her the song, “which just had a chorus”, she says.

Working with Stewart was a revelation for Nicks, who had been a “staunchly selfish, staunchly private songwriter” before the project.

“But Dave came to my house, pulled a poem out and said, ‘Let’s start here’,” she says, pulling a horrified face. “There’s a mike hanging over the coffee table and he’s plugged into a little amp and he starts playing. I’m just in the headlights. But in under an hour, we had a song recorded – the doors had opened.

“Now I understand why all those duos – Lennon and Mccartney, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Goffin and King – wrote together. Dave made it so easy.” Stewart even talked her into doing a documentary about making the album.

In her enthusiasm, Nicks doesn’t sound a day older than her teenage god-daughter.

“We shot scenes with white horses, owls, gorgeous gowns … Dave made a magical playground where everything was a toy. It was all like Christmas morning! When I saw the film, I sat down on my red couch and cried because it was all over.”

Stevie Nicks and Dave Stewart play at the Derwent Entertainment Centre on Saturday. In Your Dreams is out now.

FLEETWOOD MAC NEWS ON FACEBOOK

In April, 2013 New York Times Author Anthony Bozza began working with legendary drummer Mick Fleetwood on his life story, which will span the entire history of the band that bears his name.

In this candid, intimate portrait of a life lived in music, Mick Fleetwood sheds new light on well-known points in his history, including many incredible moments of recording and touring with Fleetwood Mac, as well as personal insights from a man who has been a major player in blues and rock 'n' roll since his teens.

The group Fleetwood Mac has sold over 140 million records worldwide, and they continue to attract a huge following, selling out their biggest arena tour ever in 2013, decades after their debut. Finally, the group's admirers will have a unique portrait of what made Mick and the rest of the group tick in the midst of their massive success and personal trials.

Similar to last year's Record Store Day where Fleetwood Mac released the alternate "Mirage" album by taking the previously issued CD from the duluxe edition reissue and making it a stand alone album, Fleetwood Mac will once again bust out the alternative album cd from 2017's deluxe reissue of "Tango In The Night". For the very first time, these alternate tracks will make their way to vinyl for this years Record Store Day on April 21st. Warner Bros. will press 4,000 copies of the vinyl for the US and 8,500 in total worldwide.

“Most of these songs were written between 1969 and 1987. One was written in 1994 and one in 1995. I included them because they seemed to belong to this special group. Each song is a lifetime. Each song has a soul. Each song has a purpose. Each song is a love story… They represent my life behind the scenes, the secrets, the broken hearts, the broken hearted and the survivors. These songs are the memories - the 24 karat gold rings in the blue box. These songs are for you,” commented Nicks.

Order '24 Karat Gold - Songs From The Vault

FLEETWOOD MAC 'TANGO IN THE NIGHT'

REMASTERED AND EXPANDED

(RELEASED MARCH 31, 2017)

Featuring the hits “Little Lies,” “Everywhere,” “Seven Wonders” and “Big Love,” this 30th anniversary collection is available in Deluxe- 1LP/3CD/1DVD, Expanded - 2CD, 1CD Remaster and Digital Download and on all streaming services.

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NEW ALBUM IN THE WORKS
Christine was a guest on the Ken Bruce radio program on BBC Radio 2 and was featured each morning between Oct 7th and 11th choosing the "Tracks of My Years". Each day included a short interview clip with Christine along with her track choice and why. During the last day Christine revealed that she's currently working on new material and hopefully a forthcoming solo album saying its a return to her musical sound of the 70's.